Microsoft to Intel: Build a 16-Core Atom Chip, Please
Microsoft to Intel: Build a 16-Core Atom Chip, Please
Posted 01/28/2011 at 8:55am
| by Paul Lilly
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On the surface, asking Intel to manufacture a 16-core Atom processor sounds like an odd request. But that's exactly what Microsoft has done. Not for Windows on the home desktop front, mind you, but for use in servers, ComputerWorld reports.
According to one Microsoft executive, low-power processors like Intel's Atom chip and AMD's Bobcat present a "huge opportunity" to tackle energy consumption woes. Even though these chips weren't really developed with server tasks in mind, they're more energy efficient at some server workloads than Xeon processors, says Dileep Bhandarkar, an engineer with Microsoft's Global Foundation Services
"I think Intel is going to have to do it at some point. We're seeing more of the ARM guys going after the server market and just to compete on power performance per watt, Intel is going to have to rely on the Atom CPU," said Linley Gwennap, founder and principal analyst at The Linley Group.
While that's true for ARM, Microsoft is hesitant to move away from x86. Bhandarkar said Microsoft would consider using ARM-based servers "if ARM can show [Microsoft] enough value over an x86 solution...but there has to be a clear performance benefit."
Image Credit: Intel
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mesiah
January 30, 2011 at 11:41pm
The sad thing is, they will probably make the cpu and then call it something like Greentech and sell it for even more than a xeon.
ShyLinuxGuy
January 28, 2011 at 11:34am
A 16-core Atom is impractical. Atom for enterprise servers as we know them, with virtualization, load balancing, whatever...isn't really practical. Sure, the town bank may do fine with a capable standalone Atom "server", but would Google, eBay or Amazon, for example, feel sufficient with even thousands of these servers running the Atom? What about a *huge* SAP database or something spread out across these things, with intensive access?
StahnAileron
January 28, 2011 at 8:56pm
Some workloads are much more I/O-bound than CPU bound. I think an argument for Atom as just webserver CPUs (i.e. just delivering webpages and not much else) was made/mentioned I think on either ArsTechnica or AnandTech. There was a company I believe working on a mass, Atom-based server. Sea-something or other I think it was called. (Sea-Sonic?)
As far as I understand it, servers usually hits one of two walls (maybe both if you're planning correctly to maximize efficiency): Processing power or I/O throughput. It's completely possible to to have low CPU usage with high I/O usage. Atom would fit fine there as you don't need a 130W Xeon coordinating the show and sucking down power if it's not gonna even hit 1/4 of its full processing capacity. A 16-core Atom could certainly fulfill the role of fileserving (NAS, FTP, etc.), webserving (well, static content, like cached data instead of dynamic data produced on the server side) and probably some other things.
I'm certain some companies would rather have a bunch of CPUs always running at 100% capacity yet sucking, say, only 25W max versus CPUs that are idle 90% yet still suck down 40W or more.
AETAaAS
January 28, 2011 at 9:26am
When I read the title; the first thing that crossed my mind was; "What the hell are going to be the minimum requirements for Windows 8?". Reading on that it was for servers, I breathed a sigh of relief. :p
OCNoob
January 28, 2011 at 1:39pm
It's not all about the GPU, especially if you have a weaksauce CPU like an Atom. No GPU is good enough to save you from poor performance in Crysis.
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